When I spoke with Libsyn, the two words I wanted to hear were “Profitable” and “Growing” before I came on board (the last company I worked for was not, and hence I was looking for a job). I heard them both. Libsyn is growing. Proof? They just hired additional support (me).

Libsyn Controls Your Feed.

I see this come up over and over and over. There are companies that do this:

If you're using Podomatic you have to upgrade to a premium version (non-free) to enter the iTunes redirect code. Blog Talk Radio requires you to send them an email. With Libsyn you don't even have to ask. We even have directions on our own website on how to leave. Why? Because we want our customer to stay because they WANT TO not because THEY HAVE TO.

So for anyone who thinks I'm lying.

You will see in the above screen shot a place for you to put a 301 redirect, and in the Extra RSS tags you can enter your iTunes redirect.

Again, you can do this without even contacting anyone in Libsyn.

If you have multiple feeds with us (Google Play, Libsyn). they all have the same setup. You can enter your new feed anytime you want.

So if someone is telling you “Libsyn controls your feed” let me share a story.

In 2014 I was getting a Denial of Service attack on my website schoolofpodcasting.com To put that in English, people were trying to hack it, and I had so much traffic I could not login to my website. I had “Control” but it didn't matter. When I contacted my hosting company they advised me to get anything that required bandwidth off my site. When I finally was able to get into my control panel, the item that was getting hit thousands of times per day was my RSS feed.

For the record, I'm not “Any-Wordpress” for your podcast feed (as long as you keep the plugins down to a minimum). I just hate to see people propagating “facts” that are untrue.

Libsyn does not control your feed. If someone tells you differently, you might want to think twice. If they aren't being honest about this, what else are they not going to be honest about?

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One Comment

One of the many, many, many reasons I love that I went with Libsyn and always promote it to others as a great hosting site.

“But it costs so much!” they’ll say.

I try to convey to them the story of when my iPhone was stolen and I thought $10 extra per month for phone insurance was “too much,” but I would have given anything to be able to go back to when the AT&T guy in the store offered it so I could say “yes” so I could have that phone replaced without having to resort to using an old non-smart phone for a few months until I could get a new phone with a new contract.

“How do you know the stats are the best?” they’ll ask.

Because back when I started, we had three episodes out and we all of a sudden saw a spike in downloads one day. Being the skeptic I am, I didn’t think, “Ooh! We made it big!” Instead, I emailed Libsyn support about it and within a couple of hours, the lovely Krystal emailed me back letting me know it was a bot — she let me down very gently, too, which was nice of her. And the spike in downloads went away.

“But you have a SquareSpace site; don’t you know you can host your RSS on it and save some money?” they’ll inquire.

Sure, but then I have to control the RSS feed. If something goes wrong, I have to fix it. Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather be able to email someone about a problem and get a quick answer from them if it’s on their end, iTunes’ end or another source. Podcasting is a hobby — a very engaging and addicting hobby for me, but still a hobby. The less I have to worry about on my end, the better.

“You seem to like Libsyn a lot.” they’ll muse.

Yup! I sure do! I trust Rob, Elsie, Krystal and Dave (you!) to always be upfront with podcasters like me. Hearing Rob get on his soapbox for the “little guys” always makes my day. They’ve always had open communication with their customers, and I appreciate that. So, thank you, Libsyn!